Drunk Goggles

We all live in different worlds. We all see it through different drunk goggles. You can never walk a mile in someone else's shoes, we all wear different sizes.

I get scared sometimes, that I'm not good enough, that I'll never be good enough. I know everyone says the only expectations I need to live up to are my own, but frankly, that's bullshit. You can't survive happily on your own, you need other people. You need them to tell you that you're not dependable or have something in your teeth. It's how we improve ourselves. You will never hear a lonely man say he's content being alone. He's just lost his faith in humanity, and it's better than the idea being with people who constantly let him down. It's why humans created the idea of a family... we could've just ended up like praying mantises.

You know, it's pretty funny, how fast your world can shatter. One tear down your mother's face. And you can tell she's trying to hide it from you, to protect you like she always has. But you see it anyway, for one split second you catch a glimpse of your own reflection in that tear, you know it'll never be the same. Her voice "Nothing's going to change, nothing's going to-" She can't finish, she falters. Both of you standing at the cliff's edge. That sick feeling. I hate it so much.

Up until a little while ago, I didn't get why we lie so much to children. Have you noticed that? We lie to them so fucking much. We tell them that Santa's real, that it's all going to be fine, that Daddy's coming home tonight. We say that shit so much we start to believe it ourselves. And then we feel like children. Cold reality smacks us back down to Earth at the realization that it's not true.

Then I understood. It's because of that one moment, that second that we actually believe what we're hearing. They're going to need that memory when they're older. We need that feeling to fall back on, to linger on. Otherwise we've got nothing to remember.

I hate how I bitch about so much. I hate how I'm inwardly negative, and outwardly I have this stupid mask on. I could say it's not me, I could say it's the unfairness of the world that gets me down. But that would be another lie. It's my fault. It's all my fault. And it's not going to go away until I fix it myself. Until I put on a new pair of drunk goggles. Suck it up, and move on.

Myself.

Parallel Realities

It's currently 2:38 AM.

I tried to lucid dream tonight. But not really. I mean, I didn't throw myself entirely into it because... well because it scares the hell out of me. Lucid dreaming is where you make yourself dream, while being entirely aware that you are dreaming. There's a whole process you have to go through to get to it. This basically means that you keep yourself conscious as you fall into a dream. And so, you are able to control what happens in your own dream. You can do anything. Anything can happen to you. You have full control... or do you. Something inside me says "What the fuck are you doing, don't you dare screw around with this shit." Supposedly you can tell if you're lucid dreaming by looking in the mirror and not seeing your reflection, or switching on light switches without any light levels changing, or looking down and noticing that you have 596869 toes. Those are lucid dream signals that occur in every lucid dream. It sounds like a horror movie.

That's what scares me. Anything could happen. How do I know if I wake up? What if I don't wake up. What happens to the real world if I stay in this parallel reality forever. I wouldn't even know...

I don't think I fully understand the size of this idea... that one can experience anything they can fucking imagine as if they were awake, as if it was really happening. Makes me wonder why they haven't built a machine that permanently sticks you in create-your-own-reality mode. Why does this terrify me?

It's currently 2:57 AM.








PS: Fun fact. If you squeeze your left thumb in your left fist as hard as you can for 4 seconds, your gag reflex shuts off. Try it. Go ahead. Now stick your index finger down your throat. It's amazing.

Into the Woods

I didn't see a bear. It was actually pretty fun despite that fact. Of course the first night was torture considering we were all holed up in the same plastic bag, essentially. The tent was definitely big enough, but damn... sleeping in one room would not have been my strong suit, had I lived in the early 1800s... or whatever.

Around 5:30 AM, the rain started. It was pounding the tarp draped above our tent, so loud that we had to shout to each other if we wanted to be heard. I just plugged myself into Ke$ha and laid in my sleeping bag watching the droplets stream down the sides of the bright red plastic. At one point during the night my brother's ear buds had got tangled in my own, and ended up in the same sleeping bag. When I followed the chord down and found an unattached jack, not knowing it wasn't the same set as was in my own iPod, it wigged me out. I thought Ke$ha was broadcasting right into my skull. I had gotten minimal sleep, alright? Cool it. Gawsh.

The storm felt like it took hours to finally subside... but then everything feels like it takes hours when you're lying in the middle of the woods. Time is a funny thing when you don't have a clock next to your head. Your mind starts to make things up and you just arbitrarily believe yourself even if you might be way off.

Nighttime is wonderful in the woods, second only to dawn. We were in a campsite, which means we were surrounded on all sides by a bunch of other families, although they seemed distant in the early hours of the chilly morning. But when it got dark, we all felt like one big family. One guy brought his guitar a couple sites over, and we could hear his slow, quiet strumming late into the night. It was very cliche, but I was in love anyway.

However, when that sun rises, there's just no way to describe it. Beautiful is far from the right word. I remember my father took me hiking in the Appalachians one winter weekend. A couple of mornings earlier I had inquired of him why our family didn't go to church more often. This was years ago. That day at dawn, the sun rose over the snow-capped mountains. A field covered in its own blanket of white powder was spread out before us. It was wild, chaotic, untamed, yet peaceful, silent. Utter awe and tranquility filled my entire being, I was stopped in my tracks.

"This is my church," my father had whispered, standing right next to me.

Harry Potter Head

Tomorrow, I leave for New Hampshire. Yeah, that's right. This an actual blog, instead of a confusing stream of abstract ideas (because that's seemed to rear its head as my forte, one way or another). What? I can switch it up. Don't look all surprised.

Anyway, I'm actually pretty excited about it. I mean, I haven't left my one horse town at all this summer. However, I'm pretty sure I've never heard a pleasant camping story. Maybe I'll see a bear. Do they even live in New Hampshire? I hear if you come in contact with a bear, you're supposed to play dead. Who the hell came up with that? If I somehow accidentally get close enough to a bear that I can shake its freakin' hand... I'm booking it out of that shiz. Actually, I'll probably just faint... that's just as good right?

Is it terrible that one of the biggest reasons I'd rather not go is the lack of technology that will be available to me? I'm going to have to go 4 days without Facebook, without twitter, without TEXTING. Oh jeez, by Day 3 I might be the crazy kid looking for the bears. Suicide by bear. That would be a cool way to die. Except if my mom told my friends what happened to me they'd probably just laugh. Thanks, guys.

The one thing I absolutely hate about going anywhere is the packing. It skyrockets my OCD. I also get that dumb What Did I Forget feeling. Every time. Oh well, what are ya gonna do.

I really hope Megan's stitches don't come out or anything. My mom's blood pressure would have its own zip code if something like that happened. Okay sequence of events last night, circa 9:10 PM...

I'm chillin' like a villain downstairs with my dad watching TV. My mom's in the kitchen (Irony). Suddenly we hear bloodcurdling screams, one after the other. We don't even look at each other, my mom was up the stairs first, of course. My sister apparently fell off her bed and stabbed herself in the forehead with a piece of plastic. Blood is gushing out of her skull, and she's just shriek-fest. Long story short: I end up having to babysit the other kiddies while my mother and father rush her to emergency room to get 6 stitches on the outside and one on the inside of her head. They get back around 12:30. And it doesn't help that my dad is cracking Harry Potter scar jokes the entire time. She's all sad because she think she's ruined her face.

I still think it's adorable. She now hates Harry Potter. Her loss.

Mr. Rogers

Remember when joy tasted so much sweeter when you were little. Surge after surge of pure happiness floats into your soul, then explodes like the knowledge of illegal fireworks on the fourth of July. And you know you can't tell anyone that this makes your life a snugger place to be, a place that fits you easier, but in some ways it's better. It's like your own secret haven, where every decision works out, and the summer days last as long as you are able to remember them.

Remember when you would get nervous about the stupid stuff, like the dark closet in your room, or running out of highway when you got sleepy on long car rides, or trees potentially falling into the house? Or your father being swallowed up by the monstrous waves at the beach so that you are no longer able to see his bright yellow swim trunks? Growing up begins to define itself, Captain Hook is replaced by the rapist alerts on CNN, and the irrational fears fade away into the mist, are replaced by more practical ones. And those are so much scarier, because they might actually happen.

Remember when you were small, and got angry... like... REALLY pissed. Just at everyone. For the stupidest shit. The dog knocked over your blocks, or Mom friggen threw away that your box of valentines from your whole 1st grade class? And your house no longer felt like a home and you just wanted to run away to Alaska because it was the farthest place you could think of... and then two seconds later you just completely forgot about why you were mad... because Mr. Rogers was on. He was great.

Have you ever looked back on your memories from when you were really little, too little to know what everything meant on a large scale? Too little to recognize the toll these experiences would have on you once you grew up? Have you ever looked back and thought..."That's why I did that" or "That's why that happened"? I do that all the time. It makes me feel like I'm time traveling. Don't judge me.

Sometimes I wish the world never knew sunlight, and Earth was always shrouded in nighttime mystery. And then one day, out of the blue, so to speak, the sun would rise. And I just want to see every one's reaction. We would all feel like children, afraid of the big sphere of fire up above us. I think if that happened the word beautiful would have a whole new meaning.

Sometimes I hear people say that they have a fear of not being remembered. I think I'm the opposite. I don't want to be remembered. I want to die without leaving my dirty fingerprints on Earth. I want to be the quiet strumming of the acoustic guitar in the back ground, that fades away before the climax of the song. I want to be the left hand of the piano. I want to have an effect on people, but have it be invisible, so that they don't remember why they're like that. I want to be the change you only see if you're looking for it.

Please look for it.

How it Feels

It's like sitting on a wooden chair, in an empty room, and you can hear music. And the music is happy, but it doesn't make YOU happy. It doesn't fill you up, even though you know it should. And you doubt yourself, you think something is wrong with you, because this music doesn't uplift you the way it seems to do to everyone else. And then you realize that you're tied to the chair, you are being forced to face this endless self-doubt, to feel this terrifying sense of difference. Waves of lost faith crash into you, rippling the self confidence you worked so hard to obtain.

You try to fit yourself into the tune, to find its meaning and place in your own life, but it doesn't work. And you feel so alone in that dark and empty room. and no one outside the room even attempts to understand. And the music is forever getting louder. Then suddenly it hits you, like a pane of glass being smashed into your forehead: the music is coming from inside your own head. That's how it feels.

Thing I Hate about Myself #37
I give in too easily, and then wonder what would've happened had I not.

The Power Game

I Will Not be a Victim. I will not lay down in front of my emotions, big name companies, the social cliques at my high school. I will be in control. How many times has that been subliminally furthered in life?

After sitting in history class after history class for over 10 years, I've realized the following: Human life is a game of power. Who has it, and who is controlled by it. It isn't about money, or looks, or kindness, or even how much brain you have. It's about how fast you get to the top, and who you bring with you. And more importantly, who you leave behind to tell what to do later on. The food chain is very carefully constructed.

Jesus was a Jew, just like the kingdom he governed. Hitler controlled a bunch of those as well. How many years have the Shiites and Sunnis been battling it out over 8,000 miles from here? Their conflict isn't over religion, they don't give a crap about that, at least not anymore. They all just want power over the other party. They all just want the supposed right to tell the other guy that your God isn't as good as mine.

And I don't think, for one second, that this is bigger than I am. Everything is relevant. The power game rings true in high school, and we all know what it's like to have to kneel down to it, and then turn around and victimize someone else. It sucks, but it's necessary to thrive in this world. Whether in a heated argument, an abusive relationship, or an infomercial, it's all about domination and control.

And strangely, I think that balance is necessary to be upheld.